Free Death of a Chancellor by David Dickinson Page A

unlikely, but not impossible. However, Mr Drake, there are certain aspects I wish to investigate where I need your approval. Talking to the
solicitors Matlock Robinson in Chancery Lane, for example. They would wish to know if I had the executor’s permission before they said anything. And I should like to bring in some examples of
the late Mr Eustace’s handwriting, to compare them with those in the various wills in your possession.’
    ‘Lord Powerscourt,’ said Drake, ‘I feel absolutely certain that you are a man to be trusted. If you wish to say, as part of your inquiries, that you are assisting the firm of
Drake and Co. in their handling of these wills, please feel free to do so. There’s only one condition.’
    ‘And what is that?’ asked Powerscourt.
    ‘That you endeavour to keep that bloody woman out of my office for as long as you possibly can.’
    ‘I take it that you are referring to my current employer?’ said Powerscourt with a smile.
    ‘I most certainly am,’ said Oliver Drake.
    Solicitor and investigator shook hands.
    Patrick Butler was sitting once more in the living room of the little house on the edge of the Cathedral Close. It was strange how frequently he found himself in this part of
the city between the hours of four and five in the afternoon. Anne Herbert was making tea in the kitchen. The children had gone to their grandparents’ house where the two little boys could
watch their grandfather’s trains come and go to their hearts’ content.
    ‘Anne . . .’ Patrick came through to the kitchen. He didn’t think his news would wait. ‘I’ve made a very exciting discovery.’
    Anne Herbert smiled indulgently at her friend. Anybody who came in regular contact with Patrick Butler was the recipient of very exciting discoveries two or three times a day. ‘What is it
this time?’ she said.
    ‘I shan’t tell you anything if you’re going to be like that, treating me like a child,’ said Patrick, lifting the tea tray to carry it into the other room.
    ‘I’m sorry, Patrick. Please tell me about your discovery.’
    Patrick looked at her suspiciously. But he couldn’t help himself.
    ‘You know that man who’s staying at the Eustaces’ house at Hawke’s Broughton? The one we saw at the funeral service?’
    ‘Was he a tall fellow with dark curly hair and an expensive-looking coat?’
    ‘The same,’ said Patrick, helping himself to a homemade biscuit. ‘His name is Powerscourt, Lord Francis Powerscourt. I looked him up in Debrett’s. They keep a copy over
in the cathedral library. He’s supposed to be a friend of the Eustace family.’
    ‘How did you discover his name, Patrick?’ said Anne Herbert, pouring two cups of tea. She sometimes suspected that Patrick and his staff would stoop to almost anything to find out
what they wanted.
    ‘One of the servants at Fairfield Park told me,’ Patrick said, managing to spill some of his tea as he spoke. It was a diversionary tactic. He did not care to mention that since the
death of John Eustace regular sums of money, moderate but not inconsequential, had been entrusted to the care of the butler in exchange for information. ‘But that is not the point, Anne. I
was talking to one of those London reporters last week.’
    Five of Fleet Street’s finest feature writers had been despatched to this obscure part of the country to entertain their readers with tales of the death and funeral of the Chancellor of
Compton. His house, in these accounts, had been magnified in size until it was considerably larger than Knole or Chatsworth or Blenheim Palace. The wealth had been increased too, rising to sums of
almost unimaginable size as if Eustace had been richer than the Carnegies and the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers combined. And the grief of the town was portrayed on a truly Homeric scale, frail
old men, strange peasant hats on their venerable heads, leaning on their rustic sticks as they lined the coffin’s route, clay pipes